Student who won't wear tracking chip reassigned

Updated 11:43 am, Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Northside Independent School District has reassigned a Jay High School student who has refused to wear the student ID badge that the district started using this year to track attendance.

A letter from the district informing Andrea Hernandez that it was dropping her from the magnet school she attends at Jay and reassigning her to Taft High School was posted on Infowars.com, a website operated by Alex Jones, an Austin-based radio host.

Northside, the first local district to test a “radio frequency identification” tracking system, picked Jay and Anson Jones Middle School for the pilot program to more accurately count students there and maximize per-student funding from the state. With a combined 4,200 students, both have struggled with attendance issues. Northside could eventually install the technology at all 112 of its campuses, officials have said.

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A handful of protesters, including Andrea Hernandez's father, Steven Hernandez, have spoken out at school board meetings against the program, which generated alarm in national conservative media outlets and criticism from civil liberties groups.

Neither the Hernandez family nor district officials could be reached for comment Tuesday. Steven Hernandez has said he would consider legal action after going through Northside's grievance process.

Hernandez has said that requiring his daughter to wear the badge, with or without the tracking system tag, is a violation of their religious freedom. The district offered to allow her to wear her badge with the chip removed, though there is no general “opt out” policy, Northside spokesman Pascual Gonzalez has said.

Students can be disciplined for not wearing the badge.

The district's letter, dated Nov. 13, noted that a decision on the grievance was made in October and that Andrea Hernandez would have to report to Taft next Monday if she didn't wear the badge, with or without the chip.